The novice programmer's "device to think with"

Dermot Shinners-Kennedy and David J. Barnes

Abstract

We present some ideas for course material for the introductory
teaching of programming that are based on the principle of
allowing the students to be the domain experts. The idea is that the
students. familiarity with the domain of discourse will make
course material more motivating, and that it will be more likely
that they will be able to model the concepts and artifacts being
discussed. This approach thereby seeks to scaffold the students.
understanding of programming-related concepts. For reasons
discussed in the paper, we have chosen mobile phone technology
for this discussion, but there is no reason why the same principles
should not be applied to other culturally-accessible domains.